Forecast

by Chris Keith

  Gable appeared in the lobby and joined Sutcliffe in the elevator. Sutcliffe stared at the young man for a full minute. A few days before, he had thought his son was alive in that toilet, giving him hope, putting some value back into his life. Instead, it’d been Gable and the first sight of him had broken Sutcliffe’s heart. Things were awfully grim. Keith Burch had a high temperature, nausea and vomiting because his central nervous system was being destroyed by radiation poisoning. Claris Faraday had sunken into a sombre mood and was suffering with extreme fatigue. Simon Matthews was drunk and pissing everyone off. Jen Hennessey had bad stomach cramps. And Martin Sutcliffe was dead.

  Chapter 24

  On the dark horizon, fiery orange light lit up the cyclonic skies; fires that had been going for over a week. What was left to burn? The ghostlike landscape, quaint and desolate, filled Trev Gable with a horrible sense of dread, forcing him to fear what the next few hours held in store for him.

  Behind him, ascending the shaft, Sutcliffe found the carcass of a dead rat. Leaning over, he saw its little paw clamped between blocks of concrete. Obviously, it had charged down the shaft with its friends and hadn’t made it into the elevator with the others. He pinched the rat’s tail and pulled it into the air, its foot detaching from its leg.

  At the top of the shaft, Gable waited for him. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “What does it look like?”

  “What will you do with it?”

  “What do you think? I’m going to dispose of it, of course.”

  Gable nodded, thinking he should try harder not to ask any more stupid questions, though he knew how difficult it was to break habits.

  In Sutcliffe’s other hand was the paint he had taken from the White Room and he held it out for Gable. “Here, take this.”

  “What for?” asked Gable.

  “You’re going to head west. So you don’t lose your way, you’re going to paint the ground, the trees, walls, whatever. Don’t use too much, just enough to keep track of the route you take. You have approximately seven hours of oxygen. Don’t give up too soon and don’t stay out longer than necessary. Remember, it’s essential that we find something to eat and drink and bring it back to the White Room, otherwise we’ll all be dead by next week.”

  “You mean…we’re not going together?”

  “What would be the point? If we separate, we increase our chances.”

  “Which way are you going?”

  “East. Now listen, don’t forget we can communicate at any time so if you run into trouble, let me know. Oh, and if you see any survivors, stay clear of them. Desperation can make humans do very bad things.”

  “Wait, that’s it?”

  “Why, what were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not good at this sort of thing. I’ve had no training.”

  “Nobody’s been trained for this, Trev. Just use your brain, be careful and you’ll be fine.”

  Gable put his hands on his hips. Why he had been chosen to go searching for food and nobody else was left only to his speculation. He felt as though he was being victimised. For what? Surviving? Wordlessly, he toddled away, sulking, but Sutcliffe had no spare sympathy for him. Everyone would have to pull their weight sooner or later.

  Waiting until Gable disappeared over the crest of the hill, Sutcliffe walked down to the edge of the cliff to dispose of the dead rat. Down at the beach, all the other rats he’d evicted from the White Room were strewn across the dark sand. The coast was infested with burnt vehicles stuck in the sand and the shoreline was littered with the bones of boats. With a delicate underarm throw, the rat cart-wheeled airborne and landed on a section of grey beach next to its kind.

  Images of how the bay once looked came into his mind; the rolling dunes descending to a few miles of sandy, tourist-inhabited beach, caravan parks on the cliffs with stunning ocean views and the surfers playing in the breaking shores. Vivid images of sunny days, clean air and life at an easy pace. His mind snapped back to the present, his eyes on the great Atlantic, now a dark grey, its colour the reflection of the sky. The once sandy shores were glazed over with the fallout of debris and dust. What was once a sound of seagulls crying in the sky and fishing boats chugging in and out of the bay was now just an eerie quiet, the whistle of the cold wind and the ocean slapping the shore the only noise.

  About to turn his back on the ruined bay and head inland, suddenly, through the bad light, a shape formed out to sea. He squinted for a better look but his sight failed him. So he followed a pathway down to the beach. At the water’s edge, in the poor light, he saw it was a ship about half a mile out. The stricken vessel had run aground and was listing to one side. The shape of the bow looked like a monument to its own passing, but what could be said of its interior? He had to get out there. Stomping about the sand, head down, he searched for a boat or a raft, eventually finding a barely water-worthy skiff overturned on the black beach. Digging it out of the sand, flipping it over, he pushed it to the shoreline. Behind him, he found two large pieces of flat wood scattered about the debris that would serve as oars.

  Dragging the skiff into the water, he rolled awkwardly onboard and with his back to the ship he made steady strokes. He glided the skiff through the water staring at the bare-fringed coastline of Britain as it fell away from him and faded. Now and again, he looked over his shoulder to verify his target, the ship gaining size. On the surface of the water, he saw dead fish in their hundreds, in death remaining together in shoals as they had in life.

  Forty feet from the ship.

  The ship was not a commercial liner but a cruise ship, he was able to determine from its shape and size. Large sections of the monstrous vessel had been pounded with supersonic waves and the scars were apparent.

  The skiff was moving sluggishly through the ocean and when Sutcliffe looked down he saw why. At his feet, dark water sloshed around his ankles. The skiff had sprung a leak and was sinking, fast.

  Twenty five feet.

  As he got closer to the stranded ship, he saw the bulbous bow was riding very low in the water, like the skiff, falling further into the sea.

  “Come on you queen bitch!” he muttered.

  Sixteen feet.

  The skiff inched closer to the bow, inching further beneath the waves pulling it under. I’m not going to make it, he realised. The skiff slowed even more and brushing the oars through the water was having little effect. And there he was again, back fearing death by drowning as he done during the parachute descent.

  Twelve feet.

  He willed the skiff on, encouraging it, even being polite to it as he spoke in his head, like it was a friend and that politeness would keep it buoyant. The ship didn’t seem to be drawing any nearer and he thought the skiff had stopped altogether. Sutcliffe buried the oars deeper into the water, working harder to keep himself afloat and keep himself alive.

  Nine feet.

  An outbound wave picked the skiff up a notch, injecting some momentum, but by now he was shin deep in water and the skiff had only seconds left in the world before it sank to the seabed and got to decaying along with the rest of the planet.

  Five feet.

  The skiff had stopped. Dispirited, angry at himself for letting down his crew, he lifted a foot out of the water and set it down on the edge of the skiff, preparing to jump. The ship was still a good few feet away. Forcing the skiff under with his weight, he sprung forward landing belly first in the water, his hand reaching out for a niche in the ship’s bow. Establishing a grip in the niche, he hauled his tired body out of the water and up onto the bow, turning onto his back. With huge relief, he looked back at his country, worrying how he would ever get back. All that mattered now, though, was the secrets the ship kept. He climbed up the sloped bow to the side of the ship, paced along the wall of the nondescript superstructure and carefully stepped around cabin windows to avoid falling through.

  He called Gable. “Trev, how are you going?”

  A nervous voice filtered back. “I h
aven’t found anything. I’m scared.”

  “You’ll be fine. Keep looking.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Alright, good lad.”

  Almost every cabin Sutcliffe passed was empty, but some of the windows revealed the bodies of dead passengers. Some looked at peace, their bodies shaped in a sleeping position, whereas others were folded in half or twisted like an abandoned ragdoll. At the back of the ship a long, rectangular window provided a view of the restaurant. Sutcliffe got to his knees and peered down through the glass. Half of the restaurant was drowned underwater. Broken chairs and tables, driftwood, equipment and human bodies polluted the floodwater. Chandeliers sat askew by the force of gravity. To the right of the restaurant, high above the water, he saw a horizontal door in the wall, the only door in sight. To the left, the restaurant neighboured an enormous terrace accessible through a row of large doors. Making his way back along the side of the ship, he found a row of trenches where he found inflatable life-rafts. On the wall hung a laminated poster with clear step-by-step instructions for the rafts.

  Making two trips, he carried two life-rafts in their stowage position to the front of the ship sloping down to the water’s edge, detached the operating cord and threw the first life-raft into the water. A mechanical CO2 system inflated the compressed raft in an impressive ten seconds, growing into a boat. It reminded him of Fable-1, how it had grown into a balloon at each stage of its altitude climb. The eight-man life-raft shaped as a chambered tetrahedron included a single flotation tube with a non-inflatable floor. Ballast bags with a retaining line and pocket, a weather shield, a sea anchor and life jackets were also included with the raft. He donned two of the jackets, then tied the securing line to the niche in the ship.

  With the second life-raft, he repeated the steps and another boat grew out of the water. At the forward and aft portions of the life-rafts, exterior handles made tying the rafts together easy using the securing line from the second raft. The fabric deck of the life-raft was equipped with an inflatable centre float for additional flotation support. For the extra flotation, he used the hand pump. Then he stepped from the second raft back onto the first raft and untied the securing line from the niche on the ship. Needing equipment to propel the rafts forward, he checked the compartments in the walls. That was where he discovered a large accessory case stocked with sponges, paddles, a first-aid kit a safety-knife, a torch, a tin opener, flares, barley sugar, seasickness tablets and fishing gear. There had to be a second accessory case in the second life-raft also. In addition, he discovered eight insulation blankets packaged in translucent plastic. That made sixteen in total.

  Sutcliffe looked up and saw that he’d been set adrift by ocean currents and it presented him with a full view of the ship’s outer hull where he saw a large scar approximately ten feet long. Bent over the water using the paddles like ski poles he rowed the rafts slowly towards the opposite end of the ship, circling around the stern, coming to the row of doors leading into the restaurant. Some doors had broken window panes, others were missing altogether. Guiding the rafts into the restaurant, ducking to avoid the frame, he observed his surroundings. The rafts parted the debris of ruined furniture and dead bloated humans and he stopped at a horizontal support beam blocking his forward path.

  He tied the securing line around the support beam and made a knot. Hopping out of the raft onto the support beam, looking up at that horizontal door in the wall twenty feet high, he tried to figure out how to get up there. The raft’s anchor, a tapered sleeve made of porous mesh, came away from the attachment point and stretched as far as Sutcliffe wanted it to go. Swinging the claw-like anchor back and forth to gain momentum, he let go and it ricocheted off the door frame. The second attempt was also unsuccessful. The third attempt almost worked. On the fourth go, the anchor smashed into the door and wrestled through a gap, dropping over the frame. Pulling the chain back until it went taut, he took his weight off the support beam and his body thumped against the wall, his feet scratching the surface of the water. Inching his way up the chain, his weak muscles objecting, he climbed to the top and reached his hand to the frame, pulling himself up.

  Side-saddled on the length of the frame, with the door pressing into his side, Sutcliffe stared into a gloomy room wondering what the darkness hid. He flicked on his EVA headlamps and a kitchen emerged. It had every distinguishing feature of a modern fast-paced galley: giant hobs and storage facilities, multifunctional equipment, impingement ovens, sandwich and salad counters, cocktail stations, pallets, racks, prep tables, ware-wash tables, sinks. The galley was a maze of compact stations. It had been a cramped place to work. Nevertheless, the closest work station, a death-defying leap of six feet, put the frighteners on him. A jump he considered too far. The bloody door, he thought, it getting in his way. He elbowed it and the door nudged away from the frame. One of the hinges was loose. Four screws stood out of their holes. He thought about the utility door used to bypass the water in the lobby outside the White Room. It gave him an idea. While he pulled the screws on the hinge, he thought of Jen Hennessey during her induction of Mission Control Base. Have you ever tried tying a shoelace with boxing gloves? He’d taken her advice and had practiced simple and complex tasks in the workshop to learn the spacesuit better – changing light bulbs, tying knots in ropes and, thanks to Hennessey, unscrewing screws.

  All four screws on the second hinge were buried into their respective holes. Physical force overcame that. Twisting the door, putting pressure on the hinge, it broke off the frame completely and Sutcliffe struggled to keep hold of it as he swung it round to the first work station, assembling the bridge. One width of the door slotted into a groove in the station while the other rested on the doorframe upon which he sat. Like walking the plank, he carefully stepped down the sloped door, peering over the edge. It was quite a drop to the ominous darkness below and one wrong step could spell death. The sound of the capsized ship creaking under the pressure of the ocean sent a chill running up his spine.

  Reaching the first station, he picked a path to suit him, making his way down, descending with large, strategic strides, heading deeper and deeper into the bowels of the galley. Closer to the water now, he opened drawers, ovens, grills, then searched for the fridges and freezers, finding neither. He searched lockers and hoods and cupboards but found only equipment. He worried that he’d come all that way for nothing, wasting precious time and oxygen when he could least afford either. Nothing else was left to check. No, there was – a large door on the other side of the galley. His final hope. Beside it, another support beam cutting through the heart of the kitchen supporting the roof provided a walkway all the way across. He climbed up onto the thin beam and stepped carefully, arms outstretched and both legs perfecting his balance. At the end of the support beam, he pulled the door open and stepped inside. The headlamps lit up a pantry with shelves that were disappointingly empty.

  “Shit!” he yelled. “Shit!”

  Turning to leave, he stepped on something and his feet went from under him. Landing hard on his side, his bad leg jarred and he wailed in agony. Several minutes passed. Sutcliffe hadn’t moved, unable to resist the temptation to rest, as good a place as any to curl into a ball and die. He doubted he had the strength to get back to the White Room anyway. More time passed. Around him, the ship moaned in pain and sufferance. Then everything went blissfully dark and quiet.

  On his awakening, he didn’t know where he was, only that he had been sleeping. How long? An hour? Two? More? His oxygen had decreased dramatically. His headlamps pointed at the wall lined with shelves directly above his head. Gradually, shapes and outlines began to appear as his sight adjusted to his surroundings. Slowly, very slowly, he rolled onto his front. He was far too hungry to move and was on the verge of giving up altogether when something drew his attention. The pantry, he noticed, was L-shaped. Indeed, at the back of the pantry was another section that he hadn’t checked. He shuffled forward on his front and peered around the corner. A vast, unstea
dy pyramid of food tins stared back at him. He looked again. He kept looking. So many tins, many labelled in a language foreign to him. Conservas Alguazas. Cecoa. What the hell was that? They all displayed pictures. Sliced, red fire roasted pepper. Sliced artichoke hearts in brine. Seedless grapes in syrup. Pear balls in syrup and lemon juice. Gherkins in vinegar. Olives stuffed with natural lemon. Soup, a lot of soup. Minestrone. Pumpkin. Vegetable. Chicken broth. Mushroom. Whole tomatoes in juice. Mini corn kernels. And tuna. It didn’t matter. They weren’t real. Were they real? He slowly rose to his feet and sculptured himself into a crouch, studying the food, doubting his lucidity. Only one way to prove it. Reaching out, he picked one of the tins up and shook it. It seemed real and hard to the touch. To the left of the pile he saw crates of various soft drinks: lemonade and fizzy orange and a few crates of water too. There was a stash of unused dinner candles buried beneath two large boxes labelled serviettes. Sutcliffe shook his head in disbelief. Not only did they now have blankets and medical kits, they’d scored food, drink, light and toilet paper.

  He laughed. “…unbelievable.”

  When his laughter faded, a question struck him. How could he get the provisions into the life-raft and back to the White Room? He tried to collect his thoughts, create a rough plan to get him through the challenging next few hours of his life. While he pondered over the task, he opened a bottle of water, opened his visor wide enough to fit the bottle through and guzzled the whole lot down. He drank another. He lifted a tin of food out of the pile. Most of the tins, he noticed, had lids firmly sealed, but others opened with a pull-tab. He cracked open a tin of pear balls, guzzled the juice and filled his mouth with the fruit, barely chewing them and swallowing whole. He feasted on another tin of pear balls and a tin of tuna. He could have eaten a lot more at that moment, but he chose to save it for the crew. Instantly, the food rehabilitated his energy and now he was ready to go to work.